Author: sharonhock

When describing Sharon Hock, the word miracle comes to mind. Her story is a testimony about how God takes a broken, wounded, messed up life and turns it into something beautiful that He can use to bring glory to himself. Learning to understand God's unconditional love and His grace that He freely showers on us has brought her from a victim to a victor. Life is no longer about surviving, but about being an over-comer and choosing the fullest of all that God always had in His plans for her. Her whole being wells up with songs to sing about this wonderful love she has found in God her Father.
To Sharon Hock, music has been like breath she breathes in, her prayers to God through some of the darkest times of her life. As long as she can remember, she has had a song in her heart and on her lips.
She has been singing in churches since she was a teen but only started to step into music ministry in 2000. She has been writing songs and singing and leading worship throughout Pennsylvania in churches, coffee shops and other venues. Recently Sharon felt called to go into full-time ministry and not only share her music, but speak on worship, which is a passion of hers. She also has begun sharing her own personal story of healing and restoration from childhood abuse. Currently, she is in the process of writing a book giving her story of her journey of healing from the abuse of her past.
Sharon grew up in the town of Shippensburg, Pa and lived there until she was married and has lived in the Newville, PA area since. At the age of four her father died and from that time until her into her marriage, her life became one filled with much turmoil and chaos. There was physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse. Throughout all of the years of abuse, Sharon never lost her love and desire to follow God and sought to know Him throughout all she was going through. Music became the tool that God used to get her through those years and to bring her into a place of freedom and healing later.
Sharon met her husband, Maynard at the church they both had attended all of their lives before they married. Maynard tells the story of how when he was about 18 or 19, he began thinking "I should start thinking about getting married." He could not think of anyone he knew off hand that he wanted to marry so he thought, "I will think of who I know I do not want to marry. I know for sure that I don't want to marry Sharon." Sharon was pretty messed up by that time and that is what he saw when he looked at her. But after he said that, he heard God say to him, "Maynard, will you love her for me?" Maynard said yes, that he would love Sharon for God. It was a few years after that experience that Maynard and Sharon were married. Sharon says that every time she thinks of that story it makes her cry because she knows that God brought Maynard into her live to show her what true love was all about and through her husband, she learned to know her heavenly Father's great love for her. Throughout the years Maynard has shown that love over and over again and Sharon knows how very blessed she is to have such a wonderful man of God in her life that so portrays the love of the Father. It has been her husband's unconditional love that has led her to have a better understanding of the unconditional love God the Father has for her.
For over 20 years now Sharon has been leading worship, singing at concerts, festivals and other events on a part time bases. In 2003 she recorded her first CD, "You Alone" with Keith Mohr of Broken Records and IndieHeaven. About two years ago the Holy Spirit began directing her to start going into churches who either did not have worship teams, those whose teams wanted some help or those who just really wanted to grow in their times of worship and praise. She began going to a few other churches once or twice a month and leading in a time of worship. From this has come a greater desire and passion to not only to be used to lead the church family into deeper intimacy in their worship, but to also bring that into people's homes. It is Sharon's strong belief that if people do not know how to freely worship and praise the Father in the privacy of their home, they will struggle to do so when they join with other believers. She believes that if every believer would seek to find that intimate place of worship in their homes, not only would things begin to happen in their daily lives, but the body of Christ would be a powerhouse when we all came together and lifted our praised and worship up to the Father as one voice! With this in mind, she has felt led by the Father to have In-Home Worship Encounters which are hosted in people's homes.
Sharon has been working for the past year on her latest recording "A Resting Place" which is due out late April. She has been working with Nathan Horst from Attic Studios in Harrisburg. The songs from this CD are very dear to her heart as they speak of the journey God has brought her on the past ten years since her last recording. The songs on this new recording are songs that speak of her love for the Father and her discovery of His great love for her. They speak of finally finding "A Resting Place" in the presence of God after years of turmoil. They are songs that come from out of her intimate times with the Lord and her hearts cry to know Him in a deeper way than every before, to see Him as He truly is and not through the eyes of the past. They are songs of praise and worship. Music from "You Alone" and the single "I Sing A Song Of Love" which is from her upcoming CD are all available on Indieheaven, CDbaby, Amazon.com, and itunes.
Sharon's passion for worship leads her to want to help teach others how important praise and worship is in our every day lives, to be used by the Father to lead people into the presence of God. This statement shared by someone where Sharon was ministering sums up what Sharon's heart is in regards to leading people into worship, "Sharon's music beckons the listener to go beyond themselves and hear what the Father is saying. The woo of the Spirit is very present in her music. When you listen to Sharon, you are drawn into the Lord's presence. Be prepared to be ministered to and not walk away the same person. She has a passion for Him and for ministry to His people."
Her other goal and desire is to help those who have been wounded and hurt find their freedom and healing through the power of God's love. While Sharon shares the story of her past, her focus is not on that but on the journey to healing and living a victorious life. It is her heart to help people see and know that they can choose to let go of the past, to become an over-comer instead of a survivor. To be one who is victorious and not a victim. She has learned that you get to choose if you will stay in your pain, or walk out of it into the glorious freedom and liberty that we have in Christ Jesus. Deut. 30 says this � "I place before you Life and Death, Blessings and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live." We have to choose life and blessings if we want to live. Sharon believes that means more than just living a life here on earth where we are simply surviving. She believes that we can have a life full of many great things when we choose it. Sharon has seen and experienced first hand the truth that if we are constantly focus on the negative things in our live, than we can't live the life God had planned for us. God has BIG plans for each of us, Jesus already paid for our freedom, the chains have been broken, now it is time for us to shake off the chains and shackles that once bound us and walk forth into the glorious blessings waiting for us.

In our lives, we have times of transition. Some of these transitions can cause upheaval and propel us to walk down a path we are not really wanting to walk down.

This has been the direction my life has been taking the past few years. A little over three years ago, my husband and I felt God directing us to sell our home. We spent a lot of time praying over this and let me tell you, this was an extremely difficult thing for me. I absolutely loved that house and location. It was my dream home. It was at the bottom of the mountain with an amazing view and I did not want to give up that home. I wept a lot of tears over giving up what I felt like was a dream come true for me. This was the second house my husband and I had bought in our over thirty years of marriage. We lived in our first home for twenty-three of those years and in my “dream home” which we bought, for the next eleven years. My childhood and teen years we lived pretty close to poverty level and from the time I was 15 till I got married at 21, my mom moved us seven times. That evened out to once a year for six of those years and twice for the seven year.

I have always had a difficult time with change. Growing up, my life was extremely chaotic, stressful, and the complete opposite of a place of rest and peace. Because of that, when I felt I had settled into a place that brought me a measure of peace and contentment, any changes left me feeling uneasy and anxious. Continue reading “Letting Go and Moving On”→

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When you think of going up into a mountain, going through a tunnel or seeing a big, beautiful bridge, what comes to mind? Are you excited, enjoying it, or are you holding your breath, not because of excitement, but because you are full of fear? For most of my life, when I came to a tunnel, bridge or went up or down a mountain, my thoughts were, “Oh, no, just stay calm Sharon, it will soon be over”. My breathing would get faster, my heart rate would go up, my palms would get sweaty and I couldn’t think or talk past my fear. I couldn’t see the beauty of the mountains around me or the wonders of the ocean, rivers or valleys I could view from the bridge I was on.

Over the years as I have been healing from the childhood abuse of my past, I have been overcoming many fears. This particular fear, however, seemed to be one that was harder for me to overcome. I continued to pray about it, about what was behind this fear, and how to have victory over it.

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Have you ever felt like your life resembles a puzzle? Random pieces scattered everywhere. There are odd shaped pieces with only a tiny snippet of the big picture on the box.

I love to do puzzles! These days I do them mostly on my computer. From Sudoku and word puzzles, to jigsaw puzzles, I love them all.

As I was doing a jigsaw puzzle on my computer one night, God began speaking to me. He wanted to teach me some lessons about life through my puzzle adventures.

The jigsaw puzzle app I have on my computer has a neat feature that I love. When a piece is in the correct position, it clicks into place and you can’t move it. Almost as if to announce, this is the place I was designed to go. As I am working on the puzzles, I often try to position a piece where I am positive it should go. An example of this is the puzzle picture on the left. The piece on the outside of the puzzle was the one I was having trouble getting to fit where I thought it should go. I had placed the adjoining pieces to the right, top and bottom of where I was confident it would fit, but it did not click in. However, when I put the other remaining piece to the left of that spot, the final piece clicked right into place and the picture was completed! Continue reading “IS YOUR LIFE LIKE A PUZZLE… PIECES EVERYWHERE?”→

Recently I was flipping through the channels on my TV looking for something interesting to watch when I came across someone explaining to someone about Christmas. She made the comment: “Oh yeah, and we celebrate a baby who was born 2,000 years ago”. She said it with a laugh and in such a way, you could tell it did not make any sense to her whatsoever.

This got me to thinking about how people look at that baby whose birth we celebrate. There are many who probably hear the Christmas carols and have no idea what they mean. To them perhaps it is like singing a song about someone they know simply as a historical figure. To many, Jesus as the Son of God is not real to them. Continue reading “Who Is This Jesus”→

STEPPING OFF THE CLIFF!

Life is a journey down roads that are familiar and roads you have never traveled before. Those roads and paths can make you wonder where in the world you are going and where you will end up at. I feel like I have been on that kind of journey this year.

As you know, we sold our house in April of this year, bought a 30 foot camper with two slide outs, parked it at our daughter and son-in-law’s house and took up residence. What a journey this has been. Going from a large house to a small combined space has been like jumping off a cliff for me.

Not long ago I had a dream that has really stuck with me. I was on a path, walking along peacefully, enjoying the beauty of nature around me. All of a sudden I came to a huge cliff. I could not see anything in front of me but open air and fog. It looked to me like there was no way forward, so I kept looking over my shoulder at where I had come from, trying to decide if I should just go back.

A bird such as an eagle or a hawk has such a different view than we as humans have. This Hock has had a pretty amazing physical view for the past 10 years but that view is about to change.

Sometimes we get so used to, so comfortable, I would even say so amazed with the view around us that we can’t see beyond that view. I have realized something pretty important concerning my own view.

After 10 years at this house that we have made a home, here on Hoot Owl Road, with the most amazing views – God is moving us on and in ways I would NEVER have imagined. Just a side note here; isn’t the name of our road pretty cool, kind of goes along with our name, the Hocks (pronounced like Hawk) who live on Hoot Owl Road. I have loved people’s reaction to that. But God is wanting these Hocks to have a different view and even embrace a different name as our residence.

We have been impressed to make some changes to get out of debt which will in turn allow my husband to make some changes with his job. We also felt that to move on into the things we know God has for our future, that getting out of debt was something that was going to be very important. For some time now Maynard and I have talked about selling our house but I just could not let go of this house, for a number of reasons which perhaps I will share about in the future. God’s work in us and our lives is amazing and so is His timing! Some things have been happening in the past months that have brought us closer to this time of changing views. Continue reading “A Hawk’s (Hock’s) View”→

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BREAKING OUT OF MY PRISON CALLED SHAME!For many years I lived in a prison called shame. Because of the abuse of my childhood, shame was a place I learned to live and grow used to. The bars of this place held me captive and kept me bound. I ate, slept, and became isolated in my prison cell of shame. It was a garment I wore well. I learned how to survive, but not how to live. Staying in my little cell of distrust, fear and wearing my “everything’s okay” mask, not letting anyone get too close, made me feel a bit safer. Shame is a prison that keeps you locked away from the person God created you to be and from fulfilling the destiny He has for you. God wants to blast open those prison doors and set you free! He has done that in my life and here is the key I found that released me from that prison of shame I lived in.

HIS LOVE!!

That’s right folks. While I had heard, from the time I was a little girl, that God loved me, I never really believed it. You see, the key to my prison door had already been used to unlock that door and set me free from my prison, but I didn’t know it. I did not know I could walk out of my prison of shame. God had already given me His unconditional love, but I didn’t believe it. I may have known it with a head knowledge, but that was as deep as it went. I did not have a real revelation of it, one that would make me truly believe it. I couldn’t see His unconditional love for me past the shame and so was unable to open the door and get out of my prison.
About 15 years ago, I started hearing more teaching on God’s love for me. I started to realize that there was something about really understanding God’s love for me — that if I could see it and know it – His love could really change my life. I began to ask God to help me see myself as He did, to show me how much He loved me. I began looking up every scripture I could find on how God the Father sees me and what He says about me. WOW! What a change started to happen. The more I began to understand that God did not base how much He loved me — by how good I was, how much I did to try to make myself better, on anything I could do to seem more acceptable — the more free I became. When I began seeing, that when He looked at me, He did not see the mess of my past, but instead He saw the beauty of who I was; I was able to take off that garment of shame I had been wearing. As I began, not only to have just a head knowledge of His great love for me, but to know and see with my heart, my whole being, from deep inside of me that God truly did love All of me, just the way I was, unconditionally, that allowed me to see that the door to my prison cell called shame was unlocked. I could open it and walk out of that prison and I did. I am free to be all God created me to be. I still have to remind myself of this from time to time when I am hit with a reminder of something that happened in my past, but now I know what to do. I take those feelings of shame, regret, pain, hurt, whatever they may be and lay them in God’s lap and He overtakes them with His love and I can see them disintegrate and be dissolved into nothing. God wants to do this for you. He wants you to break out of your prison of shame, defeat, fear, whatever your prison may be. Open yourself to His great love for you. Ask Him to reveal to
you the depth of His love for you, to give you a new picture of how He sees you, of how great is His love for you. Believe it, receive it fully and accept it. It will change your life. I know this to be true!!

Check out this link of things I say over myself taken from scripture that tells how God sees me. It has been a great help to me and will be to you also. Click here.
Sharon Hock